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Abstract

This thesis will survey the reasons for the lack of a leftist or social-democratic party in America. I will make an attempt to show that although weak there is a left tradition in the U.S. It is in this context that Senator Sanders is interesting. Though small, and even somewhat iconoclastic, a movement to the left of the Democratic Party exists in the United States, Senator Sanders being part of it. What are the traditions he draws upon? What is his standing? The thesis will try to locate him in a jungle of different small and larger groupings, parties, and grass-roots movements in contemporary America.

The journey will go through time and look at several important events in the American history of the radical left, and also the development of main terms and ideologies in this context. Finally, it will end up with seeing the weak left as a result of a nation building project that excluded socialism as such. One interesting fact about America is that rather than building a successful socialist party, some socialist or left values were incorporated into mainstream American political thought, values like equality, upward mobility, equal opportunity, and individualism.

This thesis will portray the senator, it will try to place him among his many forefathers, and it will attempt to explain what kind of socialism that has survived in the United States.